Gender bias

• Gender bias 


  View that doesn't justifiably represent experience and behaviour of men and women
• Universality


  Conclusions drawn can be applied to all humans
• Alpha bias 


  research focuses on differences between men and women so presents view that exaggerates these differences

  eg Freud - exagerrates big difference between men and women
• Beta bias 


  Focus on similarities, ignores important differences between men and women

  eg fight/flight - women have tend and befriend

  in attachment men are ignored more
• Androcentrism


  Male centred, normal behaviour judged according to a male standards and anyone who doesn't adhere to it is abnormal

  Causes alpha and beta bias
• W: Biological vs social explanations

  Gender differneces often presented as fixed and enduring when they are not

  Maccoby and Jacklin presented findings of several gender studies which concluded girls have better verbal ability and boys have better spatial ability - suggested these hardwired into our brain

  BUT Joel used brain scanning and found no such differences, possible that M and J data popularised as it fits the existing stereotypes of boys and girls.

  --> should be wary of accepting research findings as biological facts when they might be better explained as social stereotypes.
• Sexism in research


  Gender bias promotes sexism in research process

  Women remain unpresented in uni departments, particularly in science , although psycholoogy's undergraduate intake is mainlu of women, lecturers in psych departments are more likely to be men, meaning research is more likely to be conducted by men which may disadvantage participants who are women

  Complex tasks and such expectations are likely to mean women underperform in research studies

  --> means institutional structures and methods of psychology may produce findings that are gender biased
• Gender biased research
• Research challenging gender biases may not be published
• Analysed more than 1000 articles relating to gender bias, published over eight years
• Research on gender bias funded less often and is published by less prestigious journals
• Consequence fewer scholars become aware of it or apply it within their own work
• Researchers argued this still held true when gender bias was compared with other forms of bias such as ethnic bias and when other factors were controlled such as gender of the authors and the methodology used
• Gender bias in psychological research not taken as seriously as other forms of bias